Performance

A performance of an actor can make or break a movie. It can pull the audience into the movie or it can ruin the immersion. An actor must do his best for what the movie requires to make it good and that is a very tough job to accomplish. To spend hours on hours perfecting their characters and line so the character can be as believable and immersive as possible and sometimes it can break them beyond repair. Today we will take a look at a film or rather a character from the film There Will Be Blood staring Daniel Day-Lewis a silver miner-turned-oilman named Daniel Plainview on a ruthless quest for wealth.

First, let’s talk about method acting. It is the action of an actor putting himself in to a role not just in their words but in their actions and way of thinking in a way that they become that character for real. In this film Daniel did a great job in putting himself in Plainview’s shoes to the point that he has been living his life like that his entire life. I’ve seen other films starring him and he puts the same effort into them as he does in this film although you see it more in this film.

Let’s now talk about how they show his personality in the film.  The way Daniel acts in it is sort of hard to watch because Plainview is such a devilish character but that’s a good thing. The character is sort of evil underneath and you see that perfectly through it without them saying he is. Plainview is also himself acting like the good guy to all the other characters but there is always an ulterior motive. So you could say Daniel is acting two characters at once.

Now let’s talk about emotion. There are a lot of emotions portrayed by each character in this movie and you can see it clearly most of the time. I say most of the time because sometimes they are putting on a different face. Let me give an example. About a third of the way in the movie they strike oil but Plainview son is caught in the initial blast of air. Because of this he is injured and because deaf and Plainview comes to rescue him, after getting him to safety the tries to calm him down so he can go do something about the geyser of oil so after sometime and things have calmed down Plainview sort of breaks down laughing but crying. Laughing and cheering because they struck oil but crying because his son may be crippled and he convey this very well. There is also time when you can see the emotion of a character like at the end of the film he is on a rant and yelling at the priest, he is angry at him and happy to have something over him. But you can also see some spit forming and that shows this is not just acting but he is actually feeling the emotions.

Overall the performance Daniel gave was great and believable and it drags you into admiring the effort he put into becoming Daniel Plainview. The emotion and the actions that were given give this movie such characters, and without the characters there is no movie. So if you haven’t seen it then please do if not for the entertainment but just to admire the actors in it.